


the fire may come

by finalizer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Pre-TFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-13 11:54:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5706745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finalizer/pseuds/finalizer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First, there's hatred. Then, something else.<br/>It's almost discernible amidst the cold words and cutting remarks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the fire may come

**Author's Note:**

> all aboard the trash train

_It’s unusual_ — is the first thought through Kylo Ren’s mind when he’s introduced to the General —  _unusual that he isn’t afraid._

Ren finds it fascinating — the indifference in the other’s voice when he first addresses him, no tremble or hesitation — the man is like a shiny new toy one never even knew existed.

And it’s that morbid curiosity that keeps him from killing Hux the first time they go at each other’s throats.

/

"You’re treading on thin ice. I would be wary, Ren," Hux warns, "if I were you. You forget the base is not wholly under your command."

"I could say the same about you."

Hux narrows his eyes in contempt. "I speak of the Supreme Ruler, not myself. You would do well to remember you are not the highest authority."

/

A rivalry sets in, a quiet race — neither for power nor authority, which they both already possess in great quantities, but malicious satisfaction. Each wants to prove something to the other; it’s a twisted game for a sense of superiority.

Not hatred, as it’s widely thought; it’s hardly ignorance either, as is the second guess amongst the troops; if anything, it’s tentative coexistence.

/

Hux steps around Ren’s mishaps, ignores his moods and strange fancies, sets his jaw and makes sure his crew works like a well-oiled machine, deadly and precise.

Ren puts in a great deal of effort to stay out of Hux’s immediate path, to spare himself the lectures and disapproval, minds his own damn business and carries out his own plans, his personal agenda.

They meet in passing with curt greetings, a scolding on Hux’s end, a threat on Ren’s. They manage not to raise their voices, for a time.

/

There’s nothing if not order in Hux’s ranks, and it’s to his own merit. Perfect troops, loyal and unquestioning.

It’s an ideal system, an almost beautiful harmony — or it would be, did Ren not use Hux’s army for his own purposes, to chase his own priorities, misguided dreams and ideals.

Troops are killed and Hux watches the dwindling numbers with poorly concealed disgust. It’s not their incompetence as warriors, nor his as their commander, and he knows that.

He also knows Ren’s private matters are no reason to rain death upon his people.

/

"Clean up your own messes, Ren," Hux chides him, simmering heat beneath his words. "Deal with your slights, your imagined calling on your own, without costing hundreds their lives chasing a blind leader."

Ren takes a stride forward, voice low and threatening as he stands at eye level with Hux, lips twisted into a sneer behind his mask. " _Bold_ , General. You don’t know half of what you’re dealing with."

Undeterred, Hux stares straight at him, tone equally blunt. "All you have is your reputation."

Hux feels the poisonous presence coiling around his mind before he even sees Ren raising his hand. It’s blinding, deafening, a venomous show of pure power. He’s gasping for breath by the time Ren drops his hold and heads back down the corridor.

/

It’s after an audience with Snoke that Ren is seething, hatred radiating off him in fumes as he tears his way through the base, the Supreme Leader’s accusations of weakness, reminders of the ties that bind ringing in his mind.

Hux trails not too far behind — close enough to witness the damage, not near enough to experience the rage.

"He’s right, you know," Hux mutters eventually, an offhanded comment at the end of a long hallway, surprising both himself and the recipient of his message with the bold words.

Ren stops in his tracks and whips around to face the General. Without thinking, he presses the release of his mask and pulls it off in a display of menace, but the turmoil of emotion is evident on his features.

A beat passes and the glint in Hux’s eyes takes upon a more physical form as a smirk crosses his lips, entirely unkind. He turns and leaves Kylo alone in the corridor, reveling in the sick satisfaction from watching the other’s flaws dancing so obviously across his face, plain as day. He realizes the mask is an asset in terms of concealment, undoubtedly. Too much is revealed when the façade is off.

/

It’s hatred by that point, maybe.

They both believe that.

/

Ren gets himself slashed up in combat, stubbornly refuses to be healed — whether it’s to hide his own fragility or something else entirely. Hux, however, he allows into the chambers; allows Hux to patch him back together.

Hux doesn’t know why he does it, as his fingers work nimbly on the wound. He tells himself that Ren is Snoke’s most prized possession, that he cannot stand idly by as the Supreme Leader’s favorite bleeds out in front of him. He tells himself that because he knows it’s not true.

/

The game carries on, still a minefield of ill intentions, but there’s something else present. It’s almost palpable, the other component of their interaction, almost discernible amidst the cold words and cutting remarks.

/

Hux doesn’t dare to admit, to himself let alone Ren, that he harbors an inkling of respect for his abilities. It’s with a nauseating fascination that he watches Ren kill with startling efficiency, oftentimes without a weapon, nothing but a mere flick of his wrist.

Impressive though it may be, it sends a wave of uneasiness crawling towards the pit of Hux’s stomach. He’s aware of the power Ren possesses, he’s been on the receiving end more times than he’d care to admit. Yet it’s a frightening thought — that he doesn’t know its full extent, nor Ren’s full potential.

/

It almost feels like hatred, later; Ren’s teeth on his skin, hot and familiar.

/

"I won’t have you questioning my capabilities, or those of my troops," Hux tells him, as Ren exits the bridge, the General at his heel. "If your desperation for the droid to be caught runs so deep, you ought to have gone to Jakku yourself."

Ren, sans mask and smiling contemptuously, doesn’t hesitate to fire back a clipped, "That’s what I have you for."

Hux finds himself losing his nerve; backhanding Ren across the face.

"I tolerate too many of your transgressions. Disrespect will not be one of them," he snaps hurriedly, getting his point across before Ren retaliates in full.

To Hux’s confusion, he doesn’t.

/

It seems impossible, in the black of night, amidst the shivering darkness of the trees, to find Ren and haul him aboard the escape ship in time to clear the radius of the impending explosion. Though Hux often finds _impossible_ not to be synonymous with _undoable_ — and Ren is located, miraculous seconds before a fiery fissure swallows him into the ground.

It’s most certainly not hatred when Hux drapes his coat over Ren’s freezing shoulders as the ship departs.

It’s almost something else entirely.

 


End file.
